Another event that changed the world, albeit in a relatively minor way, was when on 23rd June 1993 manicurist Lorena Bobbitt swapped her nail file for an eight-inch kitchen knife and lopped off her sleeping husband's penis in a fit of pique. She drove off in the family car, tossing the bloodied bit out the car window. It landed on a lawn in front of a 7-Eleven store, where fortunately for Mr. Bobbitt it was found and, after a 9-hour and $50 000 operation, reattached in its original location. To prove how well his reattached organ worked, he made a porn movie, John Wayne Bobbitt, Uncut, showing off his scarred dick, of unimpressive size, in action with several busty starlets.

Until then, the word penis wasn't one you would hear on the evening news. The world's fascination with John Wayne Bobbitt's severed penis resulted in daily updates to its whereabouts, condition and the circumstances surrounding its amputation.

Since ancient times male genitals have been a prime target, not only for disgruntled wives, but victorious armies. Chopping off the dicks of prisoners of war, and triumphantly brandishing them as trophies was a common military sport among Egyptians, Assyrians and Israelites. In 1200 B.C. Pharaoh Merneptah of Egypt defeated the Libyans and their allies and had more than 13 000 of their penises cut off as souvenirs. The inscription on the victory monument at Karnak gives the penis trophy tally as that of 6 Libyan generals, 6359 Libyans, 222 Sicilians, 542 Etruscans, and 6111 Greeks, all of which were presented to the pharaoh. What does one do with such a gift?

Of other famous amputated penises, one belonged Napoleon Bonaparte and another to Rasputin.

By the time Napoleon died in 1821 his penis had shrunk to an inch in length, apparently the result of massive endocrine failure. The cleric who administered the last rites to Napoleon, Abbe Vignali, pilfered his penis, possibly because a grumpy Napoleon insulted him shortly before he died. The Imperial penis eventually ended up at Christies auction house in the 1960's where it was tagged as a 'small dried up object'.

Rasputin's penis, on the other hand, was anything but small. In the early twentieth century the Mad Monk was renowned across Russia for his healing powers, political influence, lustful relationships with women and his 13" penis. In 1916 conservative Russian aristocrats, jealous of his powers, plotted his assassination. After being poisoned, shot, sexually assaulted, shot again, and beaten, the attackers sliced off Rasputin's penis flinging it across the room and what was left of Rasputin into the Neva River, where he drowned. The severed penis was recovered and kept by one of his former lovers in a polished wooden box by her bedside. Maria Rasputin, writing her father's biography, described it as looking like a 'blackened, overripe banana, about a foot long'.

Then there are men that decide to purposely remove their own penises. It can be seen as the final frontier of body modification, the ultimate level of sexual gratification, a one-off sexual high. More usually it is part of a sex change operation. In 1952 a Danish surgeon amputated the penis of an American ex-GI named George Jorgensen, thus completing one of the first 'successful' sex changes. A few weeks later a stunned world was introduced to Christine Jorgensen, a woman who now believed that, although she didn't have a vagina, she had the body she was meant to have. Successful sex change operations are no longer uncommon; giving men trapped in the wrong body a new lease of life as a woman, and unlike Miss Jorgensen, they can be given vaginas.

What do you do if you find yourself in a freakish accident and your dick is no longer attached? Don't panic, just hurry. Pop it into a bag to prevent freezer burn and then into a fridge and find a micro-surgeon to reattach it as soon as possible. The time lapse between injury and re-attachment needs to be less than six hours if your dick is to perform all required functions once more.

If you run out of time, you can always do as the aboriginal women of Grippsland, Australia apparently do. They wear their dead husband's penises around their necks as a talisman. An interesting pendant, but possibly a little off-putting for any subsequent suitors.